Money, Capital and Rationality

Weiyu Pan

Abstract

One of the basic modern society’s characteristics lies in the manifestation of rationality. All the phenomena could be interpreted through reason and rationality becomes the highest standard of measuring and assessing the production and livelihood. However, the combination of capital and rationality has become the capital rationality in capitalist society.Through the study of the internal correlation between commodity, money and capital, Marx found that this combination only cares about how to obtain more capital and it is not for human purpose, which leads to alienation among people. The limitations of capital rationality will inevitably bring a rational crisis. An important enlightenment that Marx’s research gives to us is that we mustn’t allow the capital rationality to rule over the human beings.